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Water scarcity is increasing throughout the Asia Pacific, with more than two billion people being exposed across the region. The situation is particularly acute in South and East Asia, yet scarcity is also increasingly experienced in the seasonally wet tropical countries that have historically been viewed as having plentiful water resources. Population growth and economic growth are the fundamental drivers of increasing water scarcity, through demand for more and increasingly varied foods (including meat), and the rapid growth of urban areas and the water services they need. 

Climate Change will both increase water demand and reduce or make water supply more variable, for example by making wet seasons shorter and more intense, and dry seasons longer depending on the precise context. The Asia and Pacific is more vulnerable to climate change risks than other regions of the world, due to its high dependence on natural resources and agriculture, densely populated coastal areas, weak governing frameworks and high poverty rates. 

Irrigation is an integral part of the food production system in the Asia Pacific and consumes up to 90 percent of the water abstracted for human use throughout the region. As economies grow and diversify, the proportion of water historically allocated to irrigation will be reallocated to other high-value uses (such as water supply and sanitation). Climate change will further affect irrigation water quantity and quality, and it will impact irrigation water demands and growing seasons, which will increase uncertainty in irrigation planning. As a result, the irrigation sector will face significant challenges in meeting growing food demands while using less water. Greater attention will need to be paid to the relationship between irrigation and maintaining river flows, their associated ecosystems and their services, which benefit humans directly (for example, coastal fisheries) and indirectly by maintaining biodiversity and healthy landscapes.

Transboundary water governance: Sixty percent of transboundary river basins worldwide still lack any cooperative arrangement for water management. Existing transboundary water treaties and institutions are often weak in terms of their mandate, design, resources and enforcement mechanisms, and only about a quarter of all treaties cover the entire basin to which they apply. With over 780 million people dependent on transboundary rivers in the Asia-Pacific, governance of shared water resources is vital not only to sustain livelihoods, agriculture and development, but also to secure regional and international stability.

Water policy and regulatory challenges: Policy responses to achieve sustainable water resources management in the Asia-Pacific vary across countries, and public and political awareness with regard to water scarcity is often limited (especially in countries with monsoonal climates). Even in cases where water policies are in place to improve water scarcity management, there is a big gap between policy and practice. Effective operationalization of water policy is fraught with challenges, including overlapping jurisdictions and mandates, inadequate budgets for updating and enforcement and ineffective stakeholder engagement. Countries require support in augmenting their policy frameworks to address worsening water scarcity, including robust data collection and sharing, fair, inclusive and transparent water allocation systems and support to farmers to adapt to changing water resource availability and demand.